My mother spoke of dry Dog Days and wet Dog Days. During dry Dog Days it was so hot and dry that crops failed to prosper due to thirst and sunburn. During wet Dog Days we got too much rain. The crops were pale and spindly from lack of sunshine. The weeds took over because we couldn’t get out in the fields. If the wet weather pattern held into tobacco cutting time it could be disastrous. Tobacco was our cash crop. It needed to be dry when it was cut and for a couple of days afterward otherwise it would rot. The way we speared it onto the sticks allowed the leaves to shed a little rainfall but if the ground under it was wet you could be in trouble.
There was no way to predict which way the Dog Days would turn. We could have wet Dog Days while the farmers in the next holler over are in a drought. Statistically the weather was normal for the area but not so for individual farms.
We are in wet Dog Days here. It has rained as least a little bit, at least once a day, every day since the early part of July. I don’t have a garden this year but the grass in my yard is so high it is falling over. The rainfall totals for the period may not be above normal but its also the time of day when it rains that’s important. It is bright and sunny in the morning and you plan to get out when the dew and/or the shower from last night dries up. Just as you are going out the door, you hear rumbles of thunder and see streaks of lightning. You go back in and hope the sun will come back out and dry it up enough to get something down before dark. Either it stays cloudy or rains again!
Parts of four neighboring counties to the south and southeast of us are in a D1 (moderate) drought. Only Cherokee and Clay and a little bit of Macon County are in D2 (extreme) drought. The entire western slope of the Appalachians in NC are in some kind of drought (dry Dog Days). The eastern slope has had at least ample rainfall so far. There has been some flash flooding here.
I asked a question a friend a while back. “Why, when they call for partly cloudy, do I always get the sunny part? Does that mean it is always cloudy for somebody else?” He had no answer but he did share with me his way of predicting the weather. He has a weather rock! He puts it outside and watches it. If it gets wet then it is going to rain. If it stays dry then it is not going to rain, at least not yet. He says it works with snow and ice too.
—Ed Ammons 2016
According to my planting calendar dog days started on Sunday. If the weather we’ve had this summer so far is any indication, it will be dry dog days this year.
Like Ed described the difference in dog days from one holler to the next, it has been raining just over the mountain from us with nary a drop on this side.
The other morning The Deer Hunter called to see if it rained much during the night (its dark when he leaves for work in the mornings). I said “Not much. I could see the dry outline of your truck when I looked out the kitchen window this morning so it didn’t rain enough to wet the ground good.” He said well he was wondering because one of the boys he worked with said it rained for a good 45 minutes at his house. He lives about three miles from us.
We did get the best rain we’ve had on Sunday evening. It rained hard for a good 30 minutes and then drizzled for an hour or two. Maybe that rain primed the pump for us to receive more moisture in the coming days.
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Here in “our neck of the woods” (East Tennessee), we’ve gone from dry to wet “dog days” — to the frustration of our ‘ol puppy and us. For the last four days, we’ve had storms and too much rain. The power has gone out. I’ve thought about how my paternal grandparents lived — without indoor plumbing and without electricity. I think Papaw set up electric finally — after most folks had it. The outdoor toilet never became the indoor bathroom though! Granny always cooked on a wood stove — for good eatin’! Firewood heated the house. Open the “winders” in the summer! When the power goes out now, I think that I would rather live “off the grid!”
I am delighted to have found your blog – found when looking up “root hog or die.” Now have read multiple posts and enjoyed every one. I’d always thought my dad’d sayings were midwesternisms as his immediate family was in Indiana, so clearly I made an incorrect assumption. He always became vague and dismissive when questioned by us kids about his family beyond Indiana, apparently he didn’t want to upset my mother, who was from a wealthy “townie” family in VA. I think most can get that construct….anyway as I’m now learning, so many of the expressions he used actually had origins in Appalachia and environs. I am thrilled to learn this because finally the knowledge has prompted me to begin, at long last (I’m in my eighth decade) to dig into true family history. Thank you so much for sharing your research and your own heritage.
Farming is tough business, whether tobacco, or wine grapes where I live, or anything else. Very interesting post. Thank you.
It is dry here in the Brushy Mountain Foothills of North Carolina. I told someone today it feels like a blow torch when you go outside after being in air conditioning inside. There is a breeze blowing, all my wind spinners are turning, so that makes it a little more bearable. We could stand a few Wet Dog Days around here!
Here in central Texas, I think Dog Days came early and dry. I don’t think it has rained here but once since the first week of June. Ranchers’ tanks (small ponds for non-Texans) are running dry or very nearly so. Corn is burnt slam up and won’t even make cattle fodder; forget about grain. Temperatures have reached triple digits several days since the middle of June and been in the high 90s every day. The hay that’s being cut is right poor. I doubt that there will be a second crop of hay this year round these parts. If there’s a garden anywhere that hasn’t been kilt (showin’ off my Swain Co. roots, eh?), it’s being watered right heavy. We are not into water ‘rationing’ yet, but I expect it most any day because we are in the historically driest part of the year. We aren’t likely to see significant rain until September, if then.
Of course, these conditions are not rare in these parts and worse is not unknown.
Thanks for all you do, Tipper!
It has rained in the front of the house, but when I went to get some things out of the back yard to keep them dry, it wasn’t raining and did not rain that day. This is Florida and it has happened several times. The clouds are not a blanket, they are more like holey rags – some spill rain and others, not so much. I can’t wait to give my grandson (7yo) a weather rock = what fun.
I live in flat eastern NC, we are extremely dry here. We do have the same issues with getting an inch of rain and 1 mile away not getting any. I’ve only gotten 1 1/2 inches in the last 2 months. I have a deep well and have been watering my garden twice a week. Today I picked tomatoes, okra, peppers, butter beans (limas) and blueberries.
Love your blog Tipper, thank you for brightening our day.God Bless You and your family.
We’ve only had a couple of very light, quick showers here and then the sun comes back out. Saturday night we heard thunder and just knew rain would be coming but once again, it skipped over our town here in Johnston County. Other towns are getting some rain but not enough. I am not complaining because I can deal with a dry yard, it’s the farmers here that I feel so bad for. When I was growing up on the farm, we also were tobacco farmers and tobacco was our cash crop and the weather plays a very important part in it. I can remember one year we had a severe storm a few days before we were to start as we called it, “barning tobacco” and it hailed so bad that night my dad was pacing back and forth the room and praying. It beat the tobacco leaves pretty bad. I remember the holes the in leaves. I just pray we call can get the rain we need.
Your analogy to “priming the pump” makes a lot of sense. If the lower atmosphere is hot and dry where you live and a weather system containing rainfall blows in, that rain will often evaporate before it reaches the ground. There has to be enough moisture in the weather system to completely saturate the air before any rain will reach the ground. Once the sun comes out and begins evaporating the water from the soil the lower atmosphere will remain saturated until the wind blows it all away or until another band of moisture in the upper atmosphere arrives and makes it rain again.
The biggest reason for such variability in weather are the mountains themselves. Mountains reach up into the clouds and prevailing winds resulting in currents and eddies that do not often occur in flat terrain. So a lot of our local weather depends on which way the wind is blowing and which way the mountain is going.
Ed’s description of dog days was spot on! We’ve had plenty of rain for about 4 years but before that it was D2, extreme drought for ten years. Even the deep wells were drying up.
Mama always warned about getting hurt (especially bare feet) during Dog Days as it was more likely to get infected.
Yep, us folks who grow things sure watch the weather. We know all too well that “It varies.” And in the mountains it can vary a lot over small distances because of the complex terrain. You all know it well just from living on that shaded slope.
The weather folks are actually capable of making rather precise forecasts but those are not the ones most folks hear about. In wildfire control a forecast can be requested for a specific fire. They are called “spot weather forecasts”. I do not know who can get one but I’m sure it isn’t just anybody.
The other night a fella from church called to let me know it was raining at his house, about 2 air miles away. We have had 3 ten to fifteen minute showers in the last month or so. Refreshes above-ground parts of plants but doesn’t do hardly anything for the roots where the real growth comes from. My second 2nd planting of corn never did come up.
When I was a kid and had time to fish a lot, many times I would sit on the dry side of the Tennessee River and see rain falling half way across the river with muddy water running down the opposite bank. At times we would get a downpour for 30 – 40 minutes and neighbors half a mile away got none. I told one neighbor that if he would pay his tithe God might send him some rain also. I’ve seen heavy snow at an intersection with none two blocks away in any direction when we lived in the high desert.
The weatherman said we are in a moderate drought. He is surely speaking about the concrete city north of here as I describe this area in the extreme category. My sister was taking pictures in Bernheim Forest last week and came by here when she got rained out. The forest is five miles away! I wasn’t paying too much attention to the weather during the busy month of May but I know it was dry. I started keeping score in June and timed my only rain for eight minutes. We have an alert day today. Possible hail, damaging wind, and heavy rain could be headed this way. The weatherman was quick to point out that not everyone will see it.
Good to know I’m not the only one struggling with being dry while my friends a half-mile away get a soaking shower. I can SEE the rain from my house, but it passes us by nearly every time. My garden isn’t half what it should be.
How can I leave emails directly to you or your girls. I’d like to see about a necklace from your daughter. Does she have a website showing what she has made. I want to make soap as well and might need advice. Thank you
Carol-you can reach Katie about the necklace at stameycreekcreations@gmail.com and Corie about soap at thepressleygirls@gmail.com 🙂
It certainly has been dry dog days here on my mountain in Ellijay. We actually got about 3 minutes of a good rain at my house this past Sunday. The radar shows plenty of rain all around, but the rain clouds seems to split and rain a little all around us. I have driven about a quarter of a mile into town and it will be raining or show signs of rain. Sadly, not here. Sigh….
Lord, Tipper, I surely pray you get the rain you need. Here, there’s been so much rain, it becomes ridiculous. Plus it’s been cold like a well digger’s backside here. Occasionally we will get a blast of heat and humidity that brings all the bugs in you can muster! It’s that rain that will ROT everything. I picked a white fungus ( hard as a rock) from my pumpkin stem bottoms and blackberry bush stem bottom as well. Then I threw it a far distance away. Get lime and get to love it! It kills blossom end rot and blight. What I’m going to say may sound nuts but I’m beyond what others think. I’ve told you all before the devil is all about GREEN and ROT, not red and forked tailed. He loves rot, mold, death and degradation because that’s who he is- a liar, thief and destroyer. Any questions, look around and you won’t go far til you see it….
Tipper, I hope you never quit “harping” about Appalachia and it’s many wonders ❤
I have heard that prediction for a long time, the same with crickets and JoePye weed and so far we are having the ‘dry’ part now in upstate Florida. Some of the older-timer homesteaders are talking about our weather being hotter and hotter for the next 5ish years…I certainly hope not for the gardens.
I’ve been concerned over the dryness lately; it’s just seemed too dry. Then we had a good rain a couple of days ago and I hoped that would end the dryness. However, it hasn’t rained any since that one rain. It also seems hotter than usual. I am not used to seeing it this hot here in the mountains. I live a couple of miles down the road from Tipper and the Deer Hunter, so my weather is the same as theirs.
Thank you, Mr. Ammons for giving a better explanation for Dog Days than I have ever heard before. My constant questioning growing up usually left my parents realizing they had never given much thought to the normal expressions used so commonly in the Appalachians. There was always a curiosity, especially about what Dog Days and Indian Summer was all about. Of course, they did not teach it in school, and they much preferred to dig right into boring subjects such as Civics. I could be wrong on this, but I was taught everything spoils easily during Dog Days. I did note that clothes turned sour easily if left in the machine, but I later learned scientifically that was probably due to the warm moist environment. Also, I had always heard about snakes going blind and striking easier. I actually just read the reasoning behind that the other day. I really appreciate explanations from Appalachians who have lived and learned a lot from information handed down from parents and from just living the life. I hope all that is not lost one day, as I am almost certain the young folks in my world know little if any about any of this. This is where Google sometimes even lets us down. For what its worth, your explanation of Dry Dog Days and Wet Dog Days is the most interesting subject I have read about for awhile. Very mind provoking! I am always amazed at how great of a part weather plays in the lives of the folks of our region. I can recall back in the day when people meeting up could spend their entire conversation just mulling over the weather patterns.
Well, now? You just gonna leave us hanging about the snakes? :>,